"The First Christmas" is also the title of a 1998 clay-animated short film by Xyzoo Animation

Xyzoo Animation

Xyzoo Animation is an animation studio founded by director/animator Lindsay van Blerk in 1991. Situated in Cape Town, South Africa, the studio has produced five stop-motion/clay-animated films, three of which have won a number of awards. All were commissioned by New York-based Billy Budd Films...

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The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow is a Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 television special

Television special

A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...

 produced in stop motion

Stop motion

Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

 animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 by Rankin-Bass in 1975. It runs a half-hour (with commercials) as opposed to Rankin/Bass' standard hour format. It is narrated by Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury

Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

, and co-stars Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan....

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Plot

A young shepherd, Lucas, is blinded by lightning, and some kindly nuns at a nearby abbey take him in. Sister Catherine describes snow to Lucas, who has never seen it. Lucas gets chosen to play an angel in the abbey's Christmas pageant, and the Christmas snow that falls during the pageant works a small miracle.